I believe in the Prince of Peace.  I believe that War is Murder.  I believe that armies and navies are at bottom the tinsel and braggadocio of oppression and wrong, and I believe that the wicked conquest of weaker and darker nations by nations whiter and stronger but foreshadows the death of that strength.

I believe in Liberty for all men:  the space to stretch their arms and their souls, the right to breathe and the right to vote, the freedom to choose their friends, enjoy the sunshine, and ride on the railroads, uncursed by color; thinking, dreaming, working as they will in a kingdom of beauty and love.

I believe in the Training of Children, black even as white; the leading out of little souls into the green pastures and beside the still waters, not for pelf or peace, but for life lit by some large vision of beauty and goodness and truth; lest we forget, and the sons of the fathers, like Esau, for mere meat barter their birthright in a mighty nation.

Finally, I believe in Patience—­patience with the weakness of the Weak and the strength of the Strong, the prejudice of the Ignorant and the ignorance of the Blind; patience with the tardy triumph of Joy and the mad chastening of Sorrow.

I

THE SHADOW OF YEARS

I was born by a golden river and in the shadow of two great hills, five years after the Emancipation Proclamation.  The house was quaint, with clapboards running up and down, neatly trimmed, and there were five rooms, a tiny porch, a rosy front yard, and unbelievably delicious strawberries in the rear.  A South Carolinian, lately come to the Berkshire Hills, owned all this—­tall, thin, and black, with golden earrings, and given to religious trances.  We were his transient tenants for the time.

My own people were part of a great clan.  Fully two hundred years before, Tom Burghardt had come through the western pass from the Hudson with his Dutch captor, “Coenraet Burghardt,” sullen in his slavery and achieving his freedom by volunteering for the Revolution at a time of sudden alarm.  His wife was a little, black, Bantu woman, who never became reconciled to this strange land; she clasped her knees and rocked and crooned: 

    “Do bana coba—­gene me, gene me! 
    Ben d’nuli, ben d’le—­”

Tom died about 1787, but of him came many sons, and one, Jack, who helped in the War of 1812.  Of Jack and his wife, Violet, was born a mighty family, splendidly named:  Harlow and Ira, Cloe, Lucinda, Maria, and Othello!  I dimly remember my grandfather, Othello,—­or “Uncle Tallow,”—­a brown man, strong-voiced and redolent with tobacco, who sat stiffly in a great high chair because his hip was broken.  He was probably a bit lazy and given to wassail.  At any rate, grandmother had a shrewish tongue and often berated him.  This grandmother was Sarah—­“Aunt Sally”—­a stern, tall, Dutch-African woman, beak-nosed, but beautiful-eyed and golden-skinned.  Ten or more children were theirs, of whom the youngest was Mary, my mother.